Is Diane Abbott right that only Black people experience racism and other ethnic groups experience prejudice?

[IwantToRetire]

Diane Abbott has been suspended as a Labour MP pending an investigation into a letter she wrote about racism to the Observer, the party has said.

The politician said "many types of white people with points of difference" can experience prejudice, in a letter published on Sunday.

But they are not subject to racism "all their lives", she said.

She later tweeted to say she was withdrawing her remarks and apologised "for any anguish caused".

Labour said the comments were "deeply offensive and wrong".

Suspending the whip means Ms Abbott will not be allowed to represent Labour in the House of Commons, where she will now sit as an independent MP.

In the letter, she wrote that Irish, Jewish and Traveller people "undoubtedly experience prejudice", which she said is "similar to racism".

She continued: "It is true that many types of white people with points of difference, such as redheads, can experience this prejudice.

"But they are not all their lives subject to racism.

"In pre-civil rights America, Irish people, Jewish people and Travellers were not required to sit at the back of the bus.

"In apartheid South Africa, these groups were allowed to vote.

"And at the height of slavery, there were no white-seeming people manacled on the slave ships."

She had been responding to a comment piece in the Guardian questioning the view that racism "only affects people of colour".

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-65365978

It used to be the case that County Councils would have outreach workers specifically tasked to encourage GRT engagement in education for settled and still travelling children. Resistance to attending school regularly and staying in school beyond 12 yo came about for a variety of reasons including children being taught/influenced by values antithetical to their culture and 'being needed at home' [particularly the older girls]

I don't know if there was a similar set up in health but i do know of women seeking healthcare for their children behind their partners backs

Amongst Black activists there is now a move away from the term BAME because it is believed that initiatives to promote those of BAME origin often end up promoting/favouring those who do not have black or brown skin but who fall under the definition of ‘minority ethnic’.

I do not fully agree, because of the clear fact of anti-semitism and the very poor outcomes of GRT people. People that I have met who propound the above views rarely seem interested in initiatives to support those from other communities. However, I have also witnessed firsthand the different treatment experienced by someone who ‘passes’ compared to someone (of the same racial background) who does not 😕. It’s complex.

Bizarre that Diane seems to have taken on the US view of race when she has always lived over here.

I don’t think it is bizarre. All sorts of American ideas have migrated here. All of a sudden you hear “intersectional” being used in discussion, or “white privileged” for example which I think is from Critical Race Theory. That, and beliefs about gender have very much crossed the Atlantic.

The Guardian article itself says that it is a common assumption that racism affects black people the most, while the new report under discussion shows this is false.

Though I do not particularly admire Diane Abbot for her opinions in general, I do not think either that she should have to be a scapegoat for a mistakenly held common assumption, which, given her own personal experience of being a targeted for racial attacks on the basis of being black was more understandable, even if she was very wrong.

She clearly now sees what a mistake she has made; and perhaps everyone else who has mistakenly been assuming the same thing can be a little more honest about themselves.

Amongst Black activists there is now a move away from the term BAME because it is believed that initiatives to promote those of BAME origin often end up promoting/favouring those who do not have black or brown skin but who fall under the definition of ‘minority ethnic’.

So it’s not just a calculated strategy to change ‘acceptable’ language in order to deliberately set traps for decent, well-meaning white people who are doing their best, but haven’t yet noticed that ‘correct’ terminology has changed yet again?

Though I do not particularly admire Diane Abbot for her opinions in general, I do not think either that she should have to be a scapegoat for a mistakenly held common assumption, which, given her own personal experience of being a targeted for racial attacks on the basis of being black was more understandable, even if she was very wrong.

I still cannot get over her being so ignorant about the issues faced by the Jewish communities within her own constituency. Having to have security guards on schools? The general rise in anti-semitism. The problems faced by various Jewish MP colleagues, much highlighted when Corbyn was leader. As a constituency MP surely she knew that there was a greater problem than that faced by redheads.

JolyGoodBloviator said: I’m wondering if some under 25 year old very-online office intern wrote the ‘draft’ ... Seems well weird that she submitted some largely irrelevant imported US talking points to The Observer, almost like like she’s resorted to copying someone else’s homework?

I'm wondering too. Those references to slave ships, apartheid SA and US civil rights were a very odd angle to take in response to an article that was specifically about racism in the UK today.

My Dd was friends with a red head boy. He got very fearful one day as there was a bash-a-ginger ‘craze’ going round. What was ‘interesting’ was the teachers were laughing about it and making ginger jokes too. The boy did indeed get a few knocks and shoves but there were a few that got a kick-in round the country. She has since been next to him whilst he’s been heckled on the street for his pale skin as well as hair, tripped up on purpose etc. it is wearing and doesn’t happen very often but its left him always feeling a bit on edge in public.
The area we live in, it would be a complete sanctioning at school for any other physical characteristic. So I agree with you that people don’t get the red head thing.

Of course, as far as many "progressives" in the US are concerned, Palestinians are people of colour but Jews are white - despite coming from the exact same region of the world. There's no logic to this nonsense. (I also wonder what on earth these people think that the conflict over Jerusalem and the Palestinian and Jewish homelands are over, but that's another whole thing...)

Professor John McWhorter's book Woke Racism: How A New Religion Has Betrayed Black America is very good on the issue of supposed white privilege vs black victimhood etc. But of course, he's the "wrong kind" of black.

However, I have also witnessed firsthand the different treatment experienced by someone who ‘passes’ compared to someone (of the same racial background) who does not 😕.

@BadSkiingMum I have as well many times. In one case the people in question were Jewish. One was blonde haired and blue eyed, while the other looked more north African.

@TheBiologyStupid I have heard of this. I haven't read it as I know it'll make me angry and I just can't be bothered to feel utterly hopeless. I am so sad what American has done to black kids. The biggest racists are the people that spew this crap. Katharine Brisbalsingh talked about this a lot but she was also apparently not black enough and had so many awful things said about her.
These people are happy as long as the wokeness is what they want. This is another reason why I really don't think Dianne Abbott should've lost her job. This culture, as soon as someone utters the unpopular they are cancelled, is so damaging and feeds this issue. No one is having a discussion and division is brewing in whispers.

@BadSkiingMum So have I. I was sitting in A&E when a young white Eastern European guy who was badly injured asked how much longer be will be waiting and got told by the black receptionist to be grateful as he is getting this for free and if he doesn't like it he can go back to where he came from. He had obviously been injured on a building site and was crying on the phone to his mum. Was it due to his race? I don't know. She may have just been a spiteful woman who treats all people with a foreign accent the same. Point being, it's really not as simple a simple arguement. I'm sure there are some aspects of what Diane said that are correct and will resonate with a lot of people, but this is why we need dialogue without fear of losing everything. Spending time with someone who doesn't look, speak or cook like you, teaches people a lot and puts many things into perspective.

Her constituency includes most of Europe's largest Hasidic Jewish community. Probably 20k ultra Orthodox Jews. There are probably dozens of synagogues. She's represented the area for 40 years so she knows very well the prejudice that they face. Nearly every family there lost people in the Holocaust.

By coincidence, today is the anniversary of Nazi Germany beginning its persecution of Jehovah's Witnesses in 1933.

Not in the same league as Soontobe's experience, but had I had an overtly racist Maths teacher in Kent in the '70s who claimed that black and brown people were intellectually inferior. When we pointed out that the top kid in our class was a Sikh, he replied that they were "the exception that proves the rule". When we asked how you could draw the line between white and black (one of the class was mixed-race) he snarled, "As thickly as possible!" Our Chemistry teacher stood for the National Front in the local elections.

@TheBiologyStupid Wow! Maybe I was just lucky with the schools/teachers we had then. Depressing that teachers like that were not challenged in what is fairly recent times.

Slightly off-topic, but the situation in the US is getting ridiculous: "A Black Professor Trapped in Anti-Racist Hell - Vincent Lloyd"
https://archive.ph/RFQ2K

Holy shit

Some of these replies are making me feel a bit sick. So, on a feminist board, lots of stories about how black people do it too.. (racism)
And how white people have suffered too...
Sorry, do educate me on how this is different to men saying " women do it too ( violence) and " male privilege doesn't exist become some men are poor and powerless"...🤔
Because it seems the same to me.

I think what DA said was ill thought out and clumsy, but I imagine she was meaning that ethnicities other than those descended from black African, can pass and are less obvious.
Not that anyone should have to, but let's face it, one of your son's can drive across America (or Russia) and be of Jewish or Irish descent and they will be a Hell of a lot safer than Diane Abbots son because her son will present as a black man, and sorry but that comes with immediate risk in many many places across the world.
Also race may not exist, but tell that to a pregnant Black woman who knows that she is 4 times more likely to die in pregnancy or childbirth IN THE UK RIGHT NOW!
Racism IS complicated, lots of ethnicities HAVE suffered appealing human rights abuses ( my own included actually ) but there IS a particular added factor for people who are Black and yes it's institutionalised and yes it's real.

Nail on head, and have summarised what I wanted to say much better than I could.

Let’s start a thread about sexism against men, and tell anyone who says it’s a lesser issue than sexism against women that they’re ‘minimising’ and creating a ‘hierarchy of suffering’. That they’re clearly closet misandrists and that they must be trolling. That sexism against men is every bit the issue that sexism against women is, and that it isn’t a race to the bottom.

How would that go down? I bet the posters on here saying somebody with an Irish grandparent can suffer the same racism as Diane Abbott would be falling over themselves to call me a ‘handmaiden’ and tell me ‘it’s just not the same, sorry but it isn’t’.

I’m biracial/mixed race so I believe in race. These are biological, distinctive physical attributes. I would say the races are: White, East Asian, Middle Eastern, South Asian, black. I’d also say aboriginals/native Americans etc are races. Isn’t Judaism a religion, not a race? You can be Jewish but different races.

Not that anyone should have to, but let's face it, one of your son's can drive across America (or Russia) and be of Jewish or Irish descent and they will be a Hell of a lot safer than Diane Abbots son because her son will present as a black man, and sorry but that comes with immediate risk in many many places across the world.

Tell that to the Birmingham Six. Or to the Jewish kids in DA's own constituency who need security guards at the school gates.

I agree that black people are subject to horrendous racism. Unlike DA, I don't believe that acknowledging that fact is a zero sum game, which requires us to minimise or deny the racism that other groups experience.

Absolutely my understanding as well.

The Birmingham six were jailed in the 1970s! If you want an example of a black boy/man being shot for no reason at all bar his race I can give you an example from last week!

The Birmingham six were jailed in the 1970s!

And Diane Abbot's letter referenced the transatlantic slave trade (abolished by the UK in 1834) and the Jim Crow laws, of which there was never any UK equivalent, and which were repealed in the US in the mid-60s. It was she who brought historical examples into the debate, and implied that they have present-day relevance.

And there are plenty of Irish people living in the UK who have been the victims of UK police racism. There is not a single Brit who has ever been required to sit at the back of a bus because of their race. My examples are of far more direct UK relevance than hers.